


Bells From Head to Toe

by crystalkei



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 14:05:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2814677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalkei/pseuds/crystalkei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The prompt from Shannon on tumblr was as follows: CHRISTMAS AU. money is tight for the Blakes this year, tight enough that high school age Bellamy knows his mother can't provide christmas as usual, so he gets a seasonal job. a job working as Santa's helper at the mall. pointy hat and jingle bells included. and the money (and his sister's face when she gets her new phone) will be worth it, but he doesn't think it could get any more humiliating. until he bumps into Octavia's best friend christmas shopping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bells From Head to Toe

For most of his young life, Bellamy worked. When he was in elementary school, he used to come home and he’d entertain infant and then toddler Octavia while his mom got a little sleep before she headed off to her second job. When Bellamy was 11, he delivered newspapers, at 14 he got a job bagging groceries, by the time he was 16, he’d clinched a cushy cashier position at the grocery store. For his 18th birthday his mom gave him the gift of not working. She’d gotten a promotion at the dry cleaner’s, she was a manager now, and she’d done all the math and knew that she didn’t need the cash Bellamy was discreetly putting into her purse on a weekly basis.   
  
So she told him to quit. “Focus on your last year of school,” she’d said. “Good grades and maybe you’ll even have some time for fun, like those dumb movies with Molly Ringwald.”   
  
In August he put his notice in and by the first day of school his nights were free. He had a little savings to keep gas in his car and to take an occasional girl out. Bellamy could just chill now. He spent time with his friends, he went to parties. God, he even had time to study. That was just weird. But he did it and found he liked it.  
  
But the first week of December, his mom’s car broke down. It was toast really. He’d had his friend Raven look at it, but she shook her head like she was pronouncing a man dead. “I can keep your clunker running, but your mom’s is a goner,” she said.   
  
So he’d let her take his car. No big. But then the water heater had blown. His mom would never ask, but he knew she was flush when Octavia brought up a new phone. “Maybe Santa can bring it?” Octavia smiled sweetly, teasing. But their mother’s face was sad. A quick shake of the head and Octavia understood. “It’s no big deal, maybe for my birthday,” she said, trying to keep a cheerful note in the words.

The problem was it was already the second week of December. All the good seasonal jobs were filled. Nobody was taking applications and all the old regular spots were too packed to even talk to him. So he really couldn’t be picky. He just couldn’t.   
  
“We just had three people quit,” a frantic woman ran on and on through the phone. “Can you come in right now? Bring your social security card for the tax forms and we’ll get you to work today.”  
  
Bellamy just couldn’t be picky if he wanted to get Octavia the phone. He’d be padding his own little nest egg that was running out quickly, too. Maybe he could even pitch in for his mom to get another car.   
  
“I’ll be there in 20,” he said to the frantic woman.   
  
The shirt was too small. At first he worried he’d let himself go, but no, it was just a size too small. There was a much larger guy they’d hired the same day and he got the large shirt. Bellamy had to take the medium. But horizontal stripes did no one favors, especially when they were a size too small.

The shoes weren’t really shoes. Just covers for his sneakers. Good thing, the green felt was horribly itchy and the bells. He’d been doing this for a week and if he never heard another bell ding again it’d still be too much. His itchy, pointed, red felt hat with the bell on the end. He didn’t even bother telling his coworkers that his name was Bellamy. He just let everyone call him Blake. The sound of bells was so bad it had made him hate his own name.

When Marcia, the frantic woman, had called to offer him the job, she didn’t say that three people had quit because kids and parents at Christmas were the fucking worst. Sure, there was a cute one every now and then, but for every adorable child with a bowtie or Christmas tree tights, there were seven kids with sticky hands and ear piercing screams. Bellamy liked kids. He was even bold enough to say he was good with them. But this job had him considering a vasectomy at the ripe old age of 18.

“Santa,” Bellamy said to what everyone called the Second String Santa (he always smelled faintly like BO and he took way too many breaks.) “This is Hayden.” He turned to the girl who was holding his hand like a vice, she might have been five. Barely. “Go ahead, Santa doesn’t bite. He wants to know what you’d like for Christmas.” The little girl let go of his hand, looking back at her parent with wide eyes. At least she wasn’t a screamer.   
  
“Dammit!” Second String Santa screamed. Bellamy cringed. “This little one just peed on me!”   
  
“Hayden,” Bellamy grabbed her hand and shuffled her back to her parents. “Next time try to remember to go potty before you see Santa.” The little girl started to sob. “Don’t worry, this won’t get you on the naughty list,” he said as Hayden’s dad gave him an embarrassed look.   
  
Second String Santa was gone by the time Bellamy turned around. The other elf on duty, a girl named Rachel motioning to the door before she put the sign in front of big chair.   
  
 _Santa will be back at the workshop in an hour_ , the sign read.   
  
If Bellamy went on break, like Rachel, it’d be one less hour on his time card. It was already the 20th of December and he really needed every last minute he could get. So he started to tidy the area. Cleaning the plastic windows on the house behind the big man’s throne, using the inside of his foot to guide some of the bean bag chair stuffing that was meant to look like snow back to it’s proper spot.   
  
“Bellamy?” a voice called from behind him. He froze. He’d made it a whole week at this shit job without anyone seeing him. He didn’t even want to know who’d made him. He just wanted to run and hide. But he had so many bells strapped to his person, he’d never get far. Plus, if he ran, that’d be considered a break. He’d seen two more people leave the job since he started. But Bellamy was sticking this shit out. Beyond the lack of jobs at this point in the season, this one did pay obscenely well, he wasn’t gonna get $12 an hour anywhere else in this mall for seasonal work.   
  
Bellamy took a deep breath and turned to see who had found him out. Who was he going to have to talk out of spreading this all over school?  
  
“Oh my god, it is you,” a pretty blonde said. Clarke. Clarke fucking Griffin, literal princess of the junior class. Now he had bigger problems than her telling the whole school. Now he needed to make sure she wasn’t going to tell Octavia. They were friends. Clarke was holding her phone in one hand and had two Macy’s bags in her other. Bellamy looked around, it was busy in the mall but people were walking fast and not looking at the monstrosity that was Santa’s “village.” He snatched her phone out of her hand. She looked at him shocked, then irritated.  “I wasn’t going to take a picture or anything, give it back!”   
  
She held a hand out, palm up, her fingers gesturing for him to give it back. Bellamy narrowed his eyes at her. She glared back at him before he dropped the phone into her open hand.   
  
“You can’t tell anyone about this, especially O.”   
  
“As much as I desperately want to, I won’t. I mean, this whole thing is a goddamned tragedy. Is your elf name Bells and Whistles?” She smiled at her own joke but he gave her a look.   
  
“We don’t have elf names.”   
  
“We? Is there an elf union?” She raised her eyebrows in question and Bellamy fisted his hands, but quickly relaxed them. “Look at your shoes! Let me just,” she covered her mouth with her hand. He could give Clarke credit. She was  _trying_  not to laugh. She just wasn’t successful about it.  
  
Bellamy blew out air and looked away from her. The movement caused the bell from his hat to clang and ding. “You make noise, too!” She lost her battle with politeness and was now just laughing hysterically. He saw tears in her eyes, she bent over and had to clutch her side. Bellamy looked at her flatly but she didn’t see him, she was too busy trying to catch her breath from the laughter.   
  
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said in between giggles. “I know this has got to be some kind of story. It’s noble, I’m sure.” He folded his arms over his chest but the damned striped shirt wasn’t meant to handle that. It inched up around his waist and he immediately had to pull it down. There was no point in trying to look menacing in this get up.   
  
Finally Clarke seemed to be calmed down enough and Bellamy was annoyed enough to respond. “I’m just trying to make a little extra cash for Christmas,” he ground out.   
  
Suddenly Clarke was somber. “Octavia, she didn’t tell me, but I know, your mom’s had some stuff come up, I overheard her,” Clarke said gently. Bellamy looked away embarrassed.   
  
“I don’t really want to talk about anything with you, Clarke, just don’t tell anybody, okay? Not Octavia, not anyone, please.” He gave her his best puppy dog eyes. Girls ate that shit up. Clarke nodded. He nodded back but he made such a racket doing it because of the fucking bells on his costume, he cringed.   
  
“I won’t tell anybody,” she said, he could tell she wanted to laugh. She was close to it. But she pursed her lips together and then turned the laugh trying to escape into a cough. “See you later,” she was able to get out without so much as a giggle.   
  
Thank god that was over.   
  
An hour later he pulled his stupid felt hat off, tossing the thing into the little plastic house behind the chair. Off went the little shoe covers with a clang, they were also deposited into the house. When he stepped out of the little thing, bumping his head on the way, he could see someone was sitting in the chair.   
  
“Santa’s on his way back to the North Pole for the night,” he said as he came around. It was annoyingly normal the way they’d have to toss kids out of the big red throne.   
  
“If Santa’s off, then I guess the elves are too?” Clarke’s voice rang out like a song. She was in the chair sideways, her legs dangling over the arm. Not carrying the white Macy’s bags anymore, instead she had two cups from Jamba Juice. She held out one of them to him. He looked at her skeptically.   
  
“My grandma sends me a Jamba Juice card every year. She puts this insane amount on it, like way more than one person can ever really drink in a year. So this is not a pity smoothie. You’re actually helping me out. I mean, my grandma sends it to me no matter what. You think this body is going to look great after five straight years of too many smoothies? It’s not. You’re the hero here, take the smoothie.”   
  
He tried not to smile at her explanation, he took the cup and lifted his chin in thanks.   
  
“So I’m trying to decide what to get Octavia for Christmas, and I remember her saying that she wanted the new iphone. And I thought, hmmm, I could get her a case for her new phone, if she were getting the phone. But how will I know if she’s getting that phone?” Clarke righted herself in the chair and held out her hand. She expected Bellamy to help her up like royalty. He decided he needed some of her good will so she’d keep her mouth shut so he took her hand and gave it a tug so she pulled out of the chair. She stood in front of him with a twinkle in those blue eyes and all of a sudden he wanted to kiss her. Bellamy held back though.   
  
“Yeah, she’s getting the phone,” he said, a slow smile spread across his face.   
  
“You know, I think you’re gonna get a little gift from Santa yourself, Bells and Whistles.”   
  
“We don’t have elf names and even if we did, I’d get a cooler one than that.” He realized he was still holding Clarke’s hand. He decided to pretend he didn’t actually notice that.   
  
“Hark How the Bells?” she tried, she continued to let him hold her hand, but she also took an annoying sip of her smoothie, all exaggerated like she wanted him to be looking at her mouth.   
  
“Nope,” he replied. “The mall’s closing so, where’d you park, Princess?” He still held her hand.   
  
“Out by the fountain,” she told him. “I saw your car out there so…” He snorted.   
  
“Alright, let’s go then.” Bellamy tugged on her hand and they started walking.   
  
“Jingle Bell Rock?”  
  
“Am I in an elf hair band now?” he asked before taking a sip of his own smoothie. Clarke bumped her shoulder into his.   
  
“You’d be the Jon Bon Jovi of elf headliners,” she said with a giggle.   
  
“That would explain why my shirt is too small,” Bellamy added.

Once they made it to her car, Bellamy opened the door for her, Clarke stepped like she was going to get in, but stopped and turned to him, she was sort of trapped, one of his hands holding the door open and the other on the top of the car, his smoothie on top of the car next to his hand. it made it so they were very close. She looked up at him and he could see her wheels were turning.   
  
“I’m not going to tell anybody, but if you kissed me, I might forget the whole thing ever happened,” she said, a wicked smile.  
  
“I didn’t know you had it in you to level this kind of blackmail,” Bellamy said, with a smirk of his own. “But I like it.”   
  
He dipped his head and kissed her. Maybe this job wasn’t so bad. 


End file.
